


this feeling begins (just like a spark)

by synchronicities



Series: winter winds [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, F/M, Memories, Past Relationship(s), Pre-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-30
Updated: 2018-03-30
Packaged: 2019-04-14 23:21:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14146851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/synchronicities/pseuds/synchronicities
Summary: Bucky remembers Natasha in flashes.





	this feeling begins (just like a spark)

**Author's Note:**

> ive never written mcu fic before and tbh idk what this is beyond baseless infinity war bucky/buckynat spec JUST TAKE IT
> 
> title from [susie suh](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzR8BCmV9Ew).

He starts to remember her in flashes.

Steve had been the same – he had asked, _do you remember me_ in that dark room, and Bucky had answered _your mom’s name was Sarah, you used to put newspapers in your shoes_ , and Steve had chuckled, but the truth is these are things that come in bits and pieces. Bucky remembers Sarah Rogers’s name, but doesn’t remember how her voice sounded when she’d greet him; he knows he spent three dollars trying to win a stuffed bear at a fair but couldn’t pick Dolores out of a crowd.

Those memories – Brooklyn, the army – are easy. Those have Steve’s fingers curled around his arm, his hopeful eyes, and that happy little smile he’d never been able to hide.

But Bucky remembers the curve of Natalia’s lips and hears slick, hard Russian echoing off the walls, thinks of the red of her hair and sees her staring down the barrel of a gun.

Steve had called her ‘Nat.’ A lot has changed.

The memories come more often now that he spends more time outside of the freezing pod than in it. Shuri or one of the other scientists always spends a few minutes asking him basic questions: who he is, where he is from, where they are now. Count one to ten in English, Spanish, Mandarin, Hungarian. The NATO alphabet, backwards. Does he know who Steve is, Shuri, his mother, T’Challa.

Not Natalia. In a way, his memories of her are something Bucky still has for himself, even when his brain has been turned inside-out multiple times over.

Or maybe they just know better than to pry. The princess is much smarter than anyone Bucky has ever met, and he still does not completely understand exactly what she and her team did to his brain before taking him out of cryo. But he does not push. His brain has felt lighter than it has in decades, and on days like this, with the hot Wakandan sun beating down on his hut and the laughter of children outside in his ears, he lets his mind wander – the German airport, the boy who’d fought him, Iron Man hurtling through the sky, Natalia’s defiant stare as she’d shot T’Challa behind them. Steve, Natalia, and Sam on the run somewhere in the world, doing god-knows-what, because of _him_. Further still, to a cloudy night on a dark American road, _Howard_ echoing heavily in the car’s interior. Deeper, to a world of shadows and secrets, coded conversations in clunky Belarusian, covert meetings in Otradnoe to high-profile assassinations in St. Petersburg, Natalia’s eyes widening in Odessa when he’d pulled the trigger with no hesitation.

She’d gone rogue. He’d _shot her_.

 _You could at least recognize me_ , she had hissed when his hand was around her throat.

On days like this he is alone.

* * *

 

There are other days that are busier. Shuri has designed him a beautiful new arm, one both far lighter and sturdier than his old one, and there are many tests – nerve attachment, durability, flexibility. She shows him a range of newfangled functions installed on the limb, most of which escape him the first time she explains them. “You would think you would get used to the functionality of vibranium, no?” she teases.

The only vibranium Bucky had ever held was Steve’s shield. Now he watches Shuri press invisible button after invisible button on his arm, offering him a glimpse into technology he knows is far beyond the present.

It’s a little incredible, how he has never stopped being a man out of time.

She lets him train for a few hours every week – brief, intense sessions with the Dora Milaje, who fight like nobody Bucky has ever encountered, and takes down notes with a secretive smile on her face.

“Your progress is excellent, White Wolf,” Shuri tells him in her lilting accent. “We should be done with you before long.” He cannot help but smile a bit at that. Of the Wakanda Design Group she is his favorite, perky and bright-eyed in a way that makes Bucky long for simpler times. But she is still young and cannot hide everything from him, not when she has taken out the most insidious parts of his training but left the skills, the instincts, the reflexes, and everything else intact.

“Something is wrong,” he says instead.

Shuri tenses. “Yes,” she replies, and he picks up on every effort she is making so her voice does not waver. “My brother is worried. They think something very bad is coming from outside this planet.”

He knows in his bones that there is much at stake here, and he listens to Shuri recount what T’Challa has told her, his concern growing with every word. “We – they are doing something, surely?”

“They are trying.”

He persists. “You will let me fight if I am needed?”

She turns her head towards him, assessing him with dark eyes before nodding. “I think you will be ready by then. We will need all the help we can get.” And then another pause, her gaze steeling. “They will come here.”

And come they do. The sleek black aircraft – the make is Wakandan, Bucky reckons it is one of T’Challa’s, sent remotely to Lebanon or Venezuela or Cambodia or wherever the hell Steve was – alights on the landing pad and Steve steps off, confident and commanding, assessing the royal family’s receiving delegation in front of him. He looks older, wiser, stronger.

He had never needed the shield.

Natalia is at Steve’s right, moving as if an extension of him in a way that is achingly familiar. She stares down everybody he touches with imperious suspicion, the hard glare only softening when they greet T’Challa. She is at once everything he remembers and yet unlike it all – blonde hair, angry posture, a way of moving that is less deadly grace and more hurricane.

War Machine is with them, his limp just barely noticeable, and his jaw tightens when his gaze lands on Bucky. Bucky stands straighter, and Steve catches his eye. His gaze widens before his mouth collapses into that familiar small smile; his oldest friend moves towards him and holds out a hand.

“Bucky,” he greets, deceptively casual.

“Steve,” Bucky murmurs. “You grew a beard.”

At that, Steve breaks character and chuckles, pulling Bucky into a warm hug that is nonetheless all too brief – there is more to be done, after all, and Steve pulls away, clapping Bucky on the shoulder and giving him a meaningful look. They’ll talk later.

Natalia is eyeing them. There is something in her gaze that Bucky cannot read.

He takes a chance. “Agent Romanoff.”

She inhales, brief and sharp, before her face folds back into the trademark mask of seamless composure. “Agent Barnes,” she replies, her voice neutral. “It’s good to see you.”

Something in his heart curls at that. Perhaps he had loved her, somehow, back then.

* * *

Ironically, their first moment alone is amid frenetic suiting up before the battle. _The Outriders_ , Steve and T’Challa had called the invaders, alien monsters worse than anything Earth had yet seen, and they’re coming right for Vision, hiding here in the heart of Wakanda, and since their arrival it has been constant, neverending motion – evacuating the cities, rallying the troops, adjusting strategies based on incoming updates from heroes elsewhere in the world.

It’s almost their turn, now.

Steve raises his head as Bucky enters T’Challa’s prodigious personal armory, but he moves towards Natalia instead. She’s pulling on various hand weapons onto her suit, and she turns her head towards him once she notices his approach.  

“That my rifle?” she asks, eyeing the large gun in his hand.

“Wakandans do not like guns,” he admits, almost bashful. “But I had the design group make this for me. It’s like one of yours – I took one, in Siberia. Sorry.”

Natalia huffs, looking away. He feels the divide between them widening. “Figures. It’s all right, it was years ago.”

He’s not done. “I had her make these, too,” he says, presenting her with the box. It was a last-minute request that Shuri had laughed at, but she had gotten it done. Natalia frowns, but opens it. “Vibranium bullets.” He gestures vaguely as she inspects them, her gaze travelling between the bullet in her fingers and him. “We’ll be the only two fighting with guns. They will help.”

Again, that unreadable expression. She pulls a handgun from her holster and replaces the round with the new bullets. Her face has changed infinitesimally in a way he doesn’t think he would pick up otherwise. “They’re the right kind,” she confirms, her voice tight. “You remembered.”

Bucky wonders if she is thinking the same thing – his fingers pressing into her arms, the humidity in the training room, instructions that he had hissed into her ear, and by the end of that session she could land quick shots on moving targets in the dark without even batting an eye with one hand while rendering another man unconscious with her other arm.

He’s the best shot in the world, she’s a close second.

He cannot claim to remember everything. But this is a remembrance, at least, that is intact.

Natalia finishes storing the bullets on her person before moving her head to look up at him. Her eyes are wide. “Thank you.”

He feels like he should say something, anything – _I did recognize you_ , _I don’t think I would want to forget you_ , _Natalia, I’m sorry –_

But then a horn sound rushes through the building – the signal to move into position onto the plains and await the aliens’ arrival. Steve rushes past them, clapping them both on the shoulder; Bucky nods at her and moves to follow him.

“Wait.” Her gaze is stormy, but there’s something of a smile dancing on her lips. “Don’t die out there, Yasha.”

It’s both an acknowledgement and a promise, something more than a half-remembered recollection of a snowy Russian night, and they both know it. Despite everything, he lets himself smile back.

 

**Author's Note:**

> yasha = russian diminutive for yakov, russian form of jacob/james


End file.
